Working For Jobs

Southern California Edison/Long Beach, CA

INTRODUCTION:
Highly-motivated; likes challenge; collaborative; committed to delivering high quality work… Did we describe you? Read on…

Southern California Edison is one of the nation’s largest investor-owned electric utilities. We are an industry leader that is designing new and innovative ways to meet our customer’s needs. We are looking for highly motivated individuals who enjoy the challenge of working on key industry changing projects. We need your good ideas and your contributions to remain a leader in this industry.

ABOUT:
Southern California Edison's customer base is both ethnically and culturally diverse, with among the state's largest concentration of non-English speaking residents. Our company celebrates and accommodates the diversity of the community it serves through in-language services and special programs. An emphasis on diversity strategies, operational goals and accountability helped SCE maintain its rank in the top tier of Fortune magazine's annual list of the top 50 companies in America for ethnic minorities, placing high on the list at number eight.

POSITION OVERVIEW:
This position will be a Call Center Customer Service Specialist in the Customer Communications Organization (CCO) within Southern California Edison's Power Delivery Services Business Area. The successful candidate will serve as SCE's first line of contact for customers and will provide the highest quality service in a non-stop, fast-paced, and continually changing environment while ensuring SCE's and the California Public Utilities Commission's (CPUC) polices are followed.

Typical responsibilities will include:
•Receiving phone calls from customers and updating customer information.
•Resolving customer issues through the research and analysis of data, reconciliation of inquiries or transactions, and utilization of computer programs/systems.
•Negotiating credit arrangements; providing excellent customer service during disaster outage situations; handling sensitive customer information and issues.
•Participating in special projects and coordinating activities which support Power Delivery Services.
•Attending all shifts as assigned, including working overtime as needed with little to no notice.
•Maintaining a safety conscious work environment by following Edison safety protocols and safe work practices.
•Performing other responsibilities and duties as assigned.

JOB REQUIREMENTS:
•Must have a minimum of one year of experience using computer systems to resolve problems for customers and answer customer questions regarding business programs, policies, and procedures.
•Must have a minimum of one year of experience analyzing customer data and offering programs, products or services to resolve customer needs pertaining to collections, billing, inside sales, or energy advisory services.
•A combination of formal education, training, and experience to gain knowledge, skills, and abilities equivalent to those typically possessed by a high school graduate.
•Typically possesses one or more years of experience resolving customer inquiries.
•Demonstrated experience researching, analyzing, and reconciling data/information.
•Demonstrated experience applying conflict negotiation skills to resolve customer issues and complaints.
•Demonstrated experience handling confidential customer information.
•Demonstrated experience managing multiple tasks, and prioritizing shifting priorities and deadlines.
•Demonstrated experience exercising discretion and good judgment.
•Demonstrated experience providing customer service.
•Demonstrated ability to interface effectively and collaborate with internal and external clients, peers, management, and other work units.
•Demonstrated ability to follow Edison safety protocols and safe work practices.
•Must demonstrate the ability to integrate work across relevant areas, develop the business and services to enhance customer satisfaction and productivity, manage risks appropriately, develop and execute business plans, manage information, and provide exceptional service to internal and external customers.
•Must demonstrate effective resource and project planning, decision making, results delivery, team building, and the ability to stay current with relevant technology and innovation.
•Must demonstrate strong ethics, influence and negotiation, leadership, interpersonal skills, communication, and the ability to effectively manage stress and engage in continuous learning.

PREFERENCES:
•Able to speak Korean, Cantonese, Cambodian, Mandarin, Vietnamese or Spanish
•Southern California Edison employment experience.

TESTING:
•5306 – EEI Customer Service Rep Test
•We encourage you to immediately begin preparing for any tests required in this job posting.

Comments:
•This is a 24 month full-time project regular position.
•This position will be located in Rancho Cucamonga, CA or Long Beach, CA
•Edison International and Southern California Edison reserve the right to close or cancel a posting at any time.
•If you are interested in this position, please submit your resume in confidence by visiting www.edisonjobs.com.
•Edison International is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
•Candidates for this position must be legally authorized to work directly as employees for any employer in the United States without visa sponsorship.
•SCE provides access and opportunities to those with disabilities; please let us know if you require an accommodation for this appointment.

Southern California Edison, an Edison International (NYSE:EIX) company, serves a population of nearly 14 million via 4.9 million customer accounts in a 50,000-square-mile service area within Central, Coastal and Southern California. Join the utility leader that is safely delivering reliable, affordable electricity to our customers for over 125 years.

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By now you’ve probably heard of the Anthropocene. Pin it on climate change, ocean acidification, mass extinction, resource depletion, global population, landscape transformation, or any other holy fuck hockey-stick graph: The point is that the stable environmental conditions of the Holocene — the geologic epoch we’ve known and loved — no longer apply.

The Anthropocene is more than just a fanciful notion held by those who believe homo sapiens has gone totally berserk. Bigwig geologists are taking the idea super seriously. In fact, members of the International Commission on Stratigraphy — the masters of the official geologic timetable — have organized a group of scientists and experts to consider formal adoption of the Anthropocene. The basic task of the Anthropocene Working Group is to try to imagine what the rock record will look like a million years in the future, and to figure out whether we humans will have a lasting enough impact to truly merit an epoch all our own.

To get a peek behind the curtain, the Generation Anthropocene producers recently sat down with four members of the Anthropocene Working Group: Jan Zalasiewicz, the group’s convener; Mike Ellis, head of climate change science at the British Geological Survey; Mark Williams, a paleobiologist at the University of Leicester; and Davor Vidas, an international lawyer and expert on the Law of the Sea.

“The signal — physically, biologically, chemically — will be quite clear,” Zalasiewicz said. “Unless the cavalry ride in, there will almost certainly be climate change on the order of 3-7 degrees globally over the next few centuries. There will be a major sea level rise … Beaches will be covered by offshore muds.”

Ellis added that submerged cities will be preserved for the ages as well: Rising sea levels “will fossilize the various urban structures that we have built over the past few hundred years.”

So those future geologists will see our signs. Now it’s up to Zalasiewicz, Ellis, and Co. to decide whether or not it’s hubristic and premature to say that we’ve kicked off a whole new geologic era. The team will make an official recommendation in 2016.

In the meantime, some members of the working group are concerned with the less academic implications of what we’re doing to the planet. Take Vidas, the lawyer. Rising sea levels will force a serious rethinking of maritime law, he said. “Our international law is the law of the Holocene. However, with the entry into the Anthropocene, with conditions that are not environmentally stable, we may be facing a problem.”

Every geologic boundary marks a redefinition of the terms of life on Earth, which is why the Anthropocene debate has that rare quality of being simultaneously academic and socially relevant. It is an exercise of deep-time imagination, but with real-world, right-now implications. So strap on your geology goggles and dive into the Anthropocene with the masters of the geologic timetable — for the 50th episode of Generation Anthropocene.

This interview is part of the Generation Anthropocene project, in which Stanford students partake in an inter-generational dialogue with scholars about living in an age when humans have become a major force shaping our world.

Filed under: Climate & Energy

View full post on Grist

The forecast calls for a “twitterstorm” Monday, thanks to a couple dozen environmental activist groups, including 350.org, Greenpeace International, and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

A “twitterstorm” isn’t something out of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds; it’s a global campaign to raise a ruckus on Twitter by deliberately spreading a message — in this case, the call to end fossil fuel subsidies, or #endfossilfuelsubsidies, as the hashtag call will go out.

Organizers are building a smart network of influential Twitter users to seed their storm. On the eve of the Rio+20 Earth Summit, they’re aiming to break the record for most tweets of a single hashtag in a 24-hour period. As 350′s Jamie Henn writes:

Justin Bieber currently holds the world record with 322,224, over 223 tweets a minute. Organizers are confident that even if they can’t beat the Biebs they’ll be able to generate enough traffic to dominate the online airwaves during the G20 and in the lead up to Rio+20.

Now, I can already hear the skeptic complaint: How can competing with Justin Bieber possibly be a good use of activist time and energy? Can Facebook and Twitter really spark meaningful political change? Using social media as a platform for activism risks opening yet another round of the debate on this topic that has sputtered for most of the past decade, and that recently peaked with the Arab Spring.

When you look closely at what these groups are doing with Twitter, however, you see very quickly that there’s nothing simplistic or utopian about it:

Twitter connects world leaders, opinion makers, and regular activists all on one network. If we work together and aim high, we can make sure the right people see and hear this grassroots uprising. We don’t believe the internet will save the world — we believe that people will. Now let’s use this digital bullhorn to make some noise.

It’s not as though 350.org thinks, “If you tweet it, you’re done.” Remember, this is the same outfit that organized one of the largest civil disobedience campaigns in U.S. history, stopped the Keystone XL pipeline in its tracks, and circled the White House with a human chain of protest. (Full disclosure: 350.org founder Bill McKibben is a longtime member of Grist’s board, and also a friend.)

These people understand that online organizing is a means to an end, not a magic wand. But they also understand that Facebook and Twitter are highly effective in their own way both at reaching people, particularly younger people, and at leveraging media attention.

So I’ll be out there on the Twitter streets tomorrow, doing my bit for the End Fossil Fuel Subsidies campaign. See you there!

Filed under: Climate & Energy

View full post on Grist

By Lisa Curtis

I believe in climate change. I ride my bike everywhere, I work at a solar company, I buy organic and local when I can. I am young, liberal, and idealistic. But I’m not an environmentalist. And I’m not alone.

Over the past decade, the number of Americans who support the environmental movement has declined, with supporters increasingly split along partisan lines. On the other hand, most Americans strongly support developing clean energy, believe that global warming is an important issue, and regularly engage in behaviors that are good for the environment. At least that’s what we’ve told the researchers.

Gallup recently found that 83 percent of Americans want more government support for clean energy. Yale and George Mason University researchers found [PDF] that 72 percent of Americans believe that global warming should be a government priority. And another Gallup poll found that three out of four Americans regularly engage in environmentally friendly behaviors.

Apparently, many Americans are aligned with the environmental movement’s goals. We just don’t align ourselves with the movement itself.

So what’s wrong with the environmental movement? According to its more morose critics (who include a few of its former leaders), it’s dead. In my mind, it just hasn’t changed to fit the times.

I am a child of the environmental movement, the granddaughter of avid hikers who helped protect wild spaces and the daughter of ecologically minded parents who taught me the Clean Air Act along with my ABCs. So it is with all due respect that I would like to inform my elders that their brand of environmentalism simply isn’t working anymore.

The environmentalism of my grandparents’ generation was focused on preserving pristine wilderness, free from human interference. For my parents, environmentalism was all about the legislative victories.

In the 21st century, with 7 billion people to clothe, feed, and shelter, there’s little environment left that we haven’t altered. We’re changing the natural world and we will continue to do so. When the trade-off is between survival and preserving the pristine, survival will always prevail.

Of course, if we continue to degrade natural habitat at our current rate, we’ll be down to half the species of plants and animals that we used to have, and that world would be hard for all of us to survive in. And yet protecting wildlife is a hard argument to make in many of the pristine, undeveloped parts of the world where the local people live in poverty and rely on their natural resources to make ends meet.

At the same time, there are plenty of ways to survive in a more ecological manner. As I found out when I lived in Niger, one of the poorest countries in the world, environmental solutions catch on quick when they fit the needs of the local population. The women in my village loved getting more efficient cookstoves, not because they saved trees but because they saved hours spent collecting wood.

This isn’t to say that we can’t and shouldn’t take care of wild spaces and creatures. But we need to recognize that often the best way to protect wild places is to take care of people in a way that leaves room for the wild as well. There’s a reason that many environmental groups have found that the best way to stop poaching is to employ poachers as eco-tourism guides. When we make the economics align so that survival equals protecting the environment, good things happen for people and planet.

So what about legislative-focused environmentalism? Well, ridiculous politicking in Washington has turned even the most mundane issues (birth control?) into partisan fodder. This has resulted in only a handful of significant environmental victories in my lifetime, with all the signs pointing toward fewer to come.

On the international level, I’ll admit that I too was deluded by the promise of a regulatory solution. I thought President Obama would swoop into the 2009 U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen with a magic pen that would sign away carbon emissions — an act that the rest of the world would be sure to follow. It didn’t happen.

Where does all this leave the environmental movement?

The best way to grow a movement has always been to aim for inclusion and lead by inspiration. Many in my generation find promise in people-centered solutions to environmental problems that have gained traction in the United States under the catchall description of “green jobs.” Leaders of this movement include Van Jones, Majora Carter, Billy Parish, and many others who have made the case that being green isn’t just a way to protect the environment, it’s a way to revitalize our economy, culture, and communities.

Environmentalists take note: This idea resonated. It resonated for the same reason that so many “environmentalists” jumped ship after the recession. When we’re in survival mode, as so many Americans are right now, the last thing we want is something that will impede our fragile economic growth. Inspire us with the idea that environmental solutions will create jobs, give us some very valid reasons to believe it’s true, and we’ll jump on board. It might be a different ship, but the destination is the same.

So no, I’m not an environmentalist. I’m a rational human being, just like most Americans who live environmental lives. If we’re truly going to create a more sustainable and equitable economic system, we need to look past the divisions and understand that most of us are on the same side, regardless of the labels we place on ourselves, or choose not to.

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Filed under: Climate & Energy, Green Jobs, Politics

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• Lisa Curtis

Verengo Solar Plus/Mesa, AZ

Verengo: Helping Deliver the Solar Revolution

Californians lead the nation in energy efficiency—and Verengo leads the way in providing solar solutions to homeowners throughout Southern California. We install only the most intelligent, energy-efficient and dependable products available while providing unsurpassed customer service and workmanship. Plus, in addition to solar panel installation, Verengo offers a range of other energy-saving products—to help you conserve the energy your solar system generates.

We are looking for candidates who are committed to bringing our values to life:
• Trust — we build trust with every interaction.
• Responsibility — we do good and we do well.
• Uncompromising — we deliver what we promise.
• Smart — we learn from experience and find ways to improve.
• Team — we rely on each other to succeed.
• Enthusiastic — we love what we do and have fun doing it.
• Dynamic — we drive and embrace change.

Job Description:
We are currently seeking an innovative and dynamic individual to act as a Call Center Technology Analyst in our Mesa, AZ call center. As a Call Center Technology Analyst, you will be responsible for overseeing technology that drives lead management for call center operations. The individual in this role will strategize with the management team to drive efficiencies in lead management while analyzing current technologies and making recommendations on improvements.

Competencies:
Proactivity. Acts without being told what to do. Brings new ideas to the company.
Organization and planning. Plans, organizes, schedules, and budgets in an efficient, productive manner. Focuses on key priorities.
Communication. Speaks and writes clearly and articulately without being overly verbose or talkative. Maintains this standard in all forms of written communication, including e-mail.
Teamwork. Reaches out to peers and cooperates with supervisors to establish overall collaborative working relationships.
Efficiency. Able to produce significant output with minimal wasted effort.
Aggressiveness. Moves quickly and takes a forceful stand without being overly abrasive.
Calm under pressure. Maintains stable performance when under heavy pressure or stress.
High Standards. Expects personal performance and team performance to be nothing short of the best.
Persistence. Demonstrates tenacity and willingness to go the distance to get something done.
Intelligence. Learns quickly. Demonstrates ability to quickly and proficiently understand and absorb new information.
Analytical skills. Able to structure and process qualitative or quantitative data and draw insightful conclusions from it. Exhibits a probing mind and achieves penetrating insights.
Honesty/Integrity. Does not cut corners ethically. Earns trust and maintains confidences. Does what is right, not just what is politically expedient. Speaks plainly and truthfully.

Job Requirements:
Bachelors Degree required
5 years of experience with Auto/Predictive Dialer Systems (Vicidial preferred)
5 years of experience with lead management technology systems (Leads 360 preferred)
3 years of experience working in a Call Center environment (Sales and Marketing preferred)
Understanding of MySQL and MS SQL is a plus
Experience administering a VoIP phone system for an inbound and outbound Call Center is a plus
Linux based server administration is a plus
Strong analytical and problem solving skills
Must have strong relationship building and communication skills

Benefits:
We offer very competitive benefits to our employees, in addition to a fantastic salary based upon experience. We offer an amazing opportunity to make the world a better place, and you can help us grow our organization quickly. As part of our partnership with Insperity, we offer one of the best available benefit programs for small businesses, including healthcare plans, long-term and short-term disability, holidays and life insurance.

We work to maintain the best possible environment for our employees, where people can learn and grow with the company. We strive to provide a collaborative, creative environment where each person feels encouraged to contribute to our processes, decisions, planning and culture.

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by Lisa Hymas.

The
new documentary GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth explores why our economy and footprint and population can’t keep on expanding
forever. It features green luminaries galore—Jane Goodall, Paul Ehrlich, Lester
Brown, Raj Patel, Bill McKibben, Hunter Lovins. And, in the decidedly
non-luminary category, I make a brief appearance too, talking about population and
my decision to go childfree. Watch the trailer: 

If
you’re in the D.C. area, you can catch the premiere screening on Nov. 2. If
not, check out the screening
schedule to find out if the film is coming to your town soon. Or buy it yourself on
DVD.

If
you’d like to delve further into our growth dilemma, I recommend the new book The
End of Growth by Richard Heinberg, known for his warnings about Peak Oil and Peak
Coal. The book may freak you out—our current economic and social systems are poised
for total collapse, he argues—but it’ll leave you wiser.

For
a lighter and shorter perspective on our growth quandary, listen
in on this
conversation in David Roberts’ head.

This is the latest in a series of GINK videos about population
and reproduction (or a lack thereof). It’s also part of Grist’s 7
Billion series.

Related Links:

What if population grows faster than the experts project?

Quantum levitation: Probably not the secret to hover-trains, but still amazing

Is this outrageous climate denier secretly Borat?

View full post on Grist.org – the latest from Grist

by Keith Schneider.

Cross-posted from OnEarth.

Driving his black Chevy pickup to the top of the bluff where Baard
Energy wants to build the first large-scale plant in the United States
that would turn coal into liquid fuels, Rick Williams points a thick
index finger at the vacant homes and empty store fronts that make up his
Ohio River Valley town and reminisces about what used to be.

The
son of an ironworker, Williams, 56, spent much of his adult life as a
union laborer, often in the local steel mills and power plants fueled by
nearby coal mines. The work wasn’t hard to come by. For much of the 20th century, Wellsville, Ohio, was a small but active town of about 8,000
residents, most of them connected to one or more union locals.

But
now most of the steel mills are closed, the union jobs are fading, and
the town is going with them. Wellsville’s population is half what it was
40 years ago. Only 65 students graduated from the local high school
this year, and all but a handful will likely leave in search of jobs.
The overgrown riverfront parcels where thousands of people once made a
good living have been scraped clear of factories and equipment. Of the
2,000 homes here, nearly 400 are vacant, according to federal census figures.

Williams
now serves as the town’s zoning administrator, without a whole lot to
do. The city issued only one permit for a new home in the last four
years, he says as his Chevy crests the bluff. “This used to be a pretty
lively place. There was a lot of work and a lot of things to do. Now
there’s nothing here.”

So it’s not hard to understand why
Williams and many of his neighbors welcomed the idea of a $6 billion
coal-to-liquids plant that would create 4,000 construction jobs and
require 500 people to operate. According to Baard Energy,
the small West Coast energy developer behind it, at peak production the
plant would transform 25,500 tons of coal a day into 53,000 barrels of
aviation and diesel fuel.

But it would also be a major new source
of greenhouse gases and other pollutants in a region that already
suffers from significant public health problems due to air pollution.
Environmental groups including the Natural Resources Defense Council and
the Sierra Club are fighting to block Baard’s plans through legal
challenges to government air and water quality permits.

Williams
and his neighbors realize the Baard plant would bring more air and water
pollution to a region that’s just finally starting to get clean. The
Ohio River—once so contaminated and full of sediment that only
catfish and carp survived—now provides local fishermen with a regular
catch of bass, bluegills, and muskie. One morning in early March,
Williams says, he spent 20 minutes watching a bald eagle devour a fish
as it floated past on an ice flow. “Never saw a bald eagle around here
until five years ago,” he says. “The river was a lot dirtier than it is
now.”

Still, given the choice, William says that he and the rest
of Wellsville would prefer the jobs. “It’s too bad the working man has
to choose work over the environment.”

Massive expansion of the fossil fuel era

Across
America, the energy industry is taking advantage of economic
desperation in towns like Wellsville and driving to develop
hard-to-reach reserves of fossil fuels, while clean energy—with its
own promise of job creation and a transition to a new, renewable form of
production—struggles to make up ground against powerful, entrenched
interests.

Though scientists raise growing alarms about climate
change, and high gas prices serve as a daily reminder of just how strung
out on oil this country is, the energy industry is flexing its muscles
in government and the financial sector, winning permits and billions in
cash to perpetuate the age of fossil fuels. The result is one of the
grandest industrial expansions in recent decades, much of it at the
center of the continent.

North American, Asian, and European
companies are prepared to spend $15 billion annually to turn tar sands
into oil in northern Canada; $7 billion annually to drill shale oil
wells on the northern Great Plains; $30 billion to build a pipeline
network for transporting tar-sands oil, shale oil, and natural gas
through the center of the continent to the Texas Gulf Coast (an effort opposed by NRDC and many other environmental groups); and $22.6 billion to expand and
modernize refineries in the Midwest, Great Plains, and Gulf of Mexico. A
Canadian developer wants to open new tar-sands mines in Utah, and as of
2010, North Dakota had become the fourth-largest oil-producing state in
the nation—quickly heading to No. 2 behind Texas.

These
new sources of fuel are more difficult and dangerous to extract and
transport than conventional crude, and they carry greater risks of air
pollution, groundwater contamination, and greenhouse-gas emissions than
ever before. The cleaner and safer alternatives—renewable and energy
efficiency—face an overwhelming disadvantage when it comes to
investment capital, consumer familiarity, and government support and
subsidies. And Big Energy isn’t about to give up that advantage—no
matter how many oil company commercials with windmills you see on the
nightly news.

In addition, although national public opinion polls
show broad support for renewable development, individual projects
often have a tough time getting built, as clean energy remains
unfamiliar and controversial in many communities. Hundreds of local
environmental and civic groups in at least 35 states are fighting to
block large-scale wind, solar,  biomass, and smart grid projects
because of worries about scale,  safety, or damage to their views and
landscapes. Working under a   National Science Foundation grant, for
example, Roopali Phadke, an   associate professor at Macalester College
in Minneapolis, has identified   200 opposition groups working to block
big wind projects in 30 states.

A shift to renewable sources of
electricity and electric or hybrid   vehicles represents “a revolution
in energy production,” Phadke says.  “There is an assumption that
everyone has been on board. They aren’t.”

Advantage: Fossil fuels. (Like they needed one.)

Making dirty fuel from dirty coal

There was a time, in the
1980s and ‘90s, when sociologists and economists tended to regard the
Ohio River Valley and its shrunken towns as cultural anomalies, part of
a national economic sacrifice zone, the result of the transition away
from a traditional manufacturing base toward service jobs, the retail
sector, and high-tech innovation.

But as the years pass, a lot
more of America is starting to look like Rick Williams’ home of
Wellsville—a place that has nothing going on and seems to be going
nowhere. So when a venture like Baard Energy rolls into town, offering
to put people to work and to put the town on the map again, it’s hard
not to look at the upside.

“It seems like a real good idea,” Williams says. “We’ve got the coal. We’ve got the people. We could really use the jobs.”

That’s
  the overwhelming consensus in the region, says Tracy Drake, the
59-year-old chief executive of the Columbiana County Port Authority, 
which would oversee coal shipments by barge to the plant. “This is a
region that’s used to industry. We’ve seen how existing industries have
cleaned themselves up.”

Based in Vancouver, Wash., Baard is
a mid-sized builder of natural gas-fired utilities, biofuels
refineries,  and other energy projects. If built, its Wellsville
coal-to-liquids facility would likely be the first of its kind in the
United States,  although China already has four.

But despite
popular support in Wellsville, Baard has been struggling since 2006 to
secure the land,  financial backing, and government subsidies needed for
the plant. Last fall, the company’s chief executive, John Baardson,
announced that Florida-based investors were ready to finance the first
phases of the facility’s development. He said construction would
commence in the spring of 2011. So far, it hasn’t. (Baard did not
respond to repeated requests for comment on this article.)

Shannon Fisk, an NRDC attorney based in Chicago who is leading the lawsuit against Baard, doubts the facility will ever
  be built, based on the company’s difficulty securing money and the
economic and environmental case he’s building against the project. 
“Liquid coal is the wrong way to go,” Fisk says. “It is massively
expensive and could not move forward without taxpayer subsidies. Those
resources should go to developing truly clean alternatives, not to
developing dirty coal.”

In partnership with the Sierra Club, Fisk
  has unleashed state and federal actions to block the Baard plant. In
September 2008, the environmental groups argued to Ohio’s Environmental
Review Appeals Commission that the Ohio Environmental Protection
Administration had not set strict enough limits on air and water
pollution from the plant when it issued permits earlier that year. A
ruling is pending.

The groups are also taking legal action to set
  stronger limits on carbon dioxide emissions from the plant and to
protect surrounding wetlands. Fisk says the plant would produce more
than 12 million tons of carbon dioxide annually from the process of
turning coal into fuel; the fuel itself would produce an additional
14-plus million tons as it is burned in planes and vehicles. In other
words, liquid fuel made from coal is twice as bad for global warming as
regular petroleum.

Perhaps the most important effect of Fisk’s
legal campaign is that in March 2009 it blew apart Baard’s bid to secure
  a multi-billion-dollar federal loan guarantee from the U.S. Department
  of Energy. That setback nearly killed the Baard proposal outright. 
Fisk’s research found that the Baard project was in serious financial
trouble in the months following the Department of Energy decision.

The
  company, according to court records dug out by Fisk, took 18 months to
  pay the $80,000 fee for Ohio air and water permits, and paid only
after the state threatened to pursue the debt with a collection agency.
Twice,  law firms hired by the company were not paid and withdrew
representation, Fisk said. And a consulting company sued Baard for not
paying fees associated with preparing the state permit applications and,
  according to court documents, won a $225,000 default judgment.

“Even
  if coal-to-liquids was a good idea,” said Fisk, “I am not sure I would
  want a company with this track record doing a $6 billion plant. There
isn’t anything about this plant or the company that inspires
confidence.”

If not liquid coal, how about gas?

Still, 
it’s not clear whether the Baard proposal represents the last flicker of
  a dying idea or the opening foray into a potentially huge American
coal-conversion industry. Periodically over the past 30 years, proposals
  to build coal-to-liquids plants in the United States have flourished
and vanished, following the rise and fall of oil prices. In 2007, for
example, as oil prices climbed, the Department of Energy was monitoring
17 proposals for coal-to-liquids plants in 10 states.

The Baard
proposal and a coal-to-liquids development in West Virginia are the
last still breathing. The others have been cancelled or indefinitely
delayed because developers have been unable to raise the billions
needed in private capital.

That, too, is a symptom of America’s
new wariness. In effect, the country is so nervous about its future, so
  focused on the perceived risks—health, environmental, financial—
of pursuing new paths in energy production that it’s basically just
pursuing what it knows best: coal, gas, and oil.

As Rick Williams
  and his Wellsville neighbors know all too well, just holding your
place in a whirlwind of change is about the worst place to be. No one
has proposed big projects to harness wind or solar energy in the
Wellsville region, Williams notes. But natural gas companies have begun
nosing around, signing leases in preparation of drilling deep shale
gas wells.

“You know anything about that?” he asks. “Will it affect our water?”

In a place with few options, even the riskiest ones can seem promising.

Related Links:

When is it time to break up with your utility?

How many lives did the EPA just save with coal pollution regulation?

New EPA air pollution standard protects public health

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Southern California Edison/Rancho Cucamonga, CA

Southern California Edison
SCE – NB61791961EA – Call Center Quality Manager
Work Location: CA-Rancho Cucamonga

Basic Qualifications
Must have at least three years of experience developing quality standards, practices, and coaching requirements in a call center environment.

Core Competencies
- Bachelor's Degree in Business, Liberal Arts, or technical discipline or an equivalent combination of education, training, and experience.
- Typically possesses three to five years managing or leading a customer call center team.
- Demonstrated experience developing policies and procedures, including implementing coaching quality levels and interaction requirements designed to provide as high an impact as possible to the representative workforce.
- Demonstrated experience providing input on and developing strategic positions, improvement initiatives, staffing requirements, and budgetary requirements.
- Demonstrated experience managing talent, selecting and developing employees to fill talent gaps, coaching, and establishing performance measurement systems.
- Demonstrated experience leading cross functional teams to meet business expectations, including facilitating team building activities and promoting an environment centered on teamwork.
- Demonstrated ability to develop, document, and maintain operational policies and procedures, including designing and documenting detailed process flows and reports.
- Demonstrated ability to achieve results through others by establishing priorities and empowering employees with the authority necessary to accomplish objectives.
- Demonstrated experience using Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and Visio.
- Must demonstrate the ability to integrate work across relevant areas, develop the business and services to enhance customer satisfaction and productivity, manage risks and safety appropriately, develop and execute business plans, manage information, and provide exceptional service to internal and external customers.
- Must demonstrate effective resource and project planning, decision making, results delivery, team building, and the ability to stay current with relevant technology and innovation.
- Must demonstrate strong ethics, influence and negotiation, leadership, interpersonal skills, communication, and the ability to effectively manage stress and engage in continuous learning.

COMMENTS: Additional testing may be required as part of the selection process for this position. Candidates for this position must be legally authorized to work directly as employees for any employer in the United States without visa sponsorship. The primary work location for this position is Rancho Cucamunga however, the successful candidate may also be asked to travel to various SCE call centers. Relocation expenses may be covered for the successful candidate. Priority consideration will be given to employees affected by the SmartConnect Implementation. Priority consideration means that affected employees who apply for job postings in CSBU will be considered for these vacancies prior to other employees who have applied. An affected employee is deemed qualified for the (lateral or downward movement) vacancy based on first a profile screen and then a selection interview. If no affected employees are qualified, the remaining candidates will be evaluated using a profile screen/selection interview process and the most competitive person will be selected.

Typical Responsibilities
This position will be in the Customer Communication Organization (CCO) within Southern California Edison's (SCE) Customer Service Business Unit (CSBU). The successful candidate will lead the direction, assessment, enhancement, and effective execution of the CCO Quality Organization. Typical responsibilities will include: managing SCE Call Center Quality Assurance Program supervisors and staff and providing oversight of processes, budget, and procedures for the Quality Management Organization; creating short- and mid-term plans for operational effectiveness, including the implementation, improvement, and integration of those plans within the organization; providing ongoing focus on standards, behaviors, and calibration that drive Quality processes across the organization; providing coaching to internal CCO Supervisors (as well as Direct Reporting Supervisors) on areas specific to excellence in quality, including employee performance, quality rating scores, employee effectiveness techniques, customer interaction techniques; implementing and adopting of strategic improvement initiatives, including Quality Assurance Enhancement, Energy Efficiency Integration to CCO Operations, Customer Product and Program Integration, and Voice of the Customer initiatives; acting as an escalated source for employee issues and providing dispute resolution, and as Co-Lead on the CCO Quality Council, to set policy and procedures regarding customer contact quality, including making frequent decisions that have an impact on CCO key performance indicators, achievement of goals and overall efficiency; engaging employees and aligning their skills with business goals by providing direct reports and subordinate employees with coaching and mentoring; acting as CCO Lead on Voice of the Customer activities, including coordinating call distribution to key leaders across SCE for call evaluation, Quality Service Transformation Activities across CSBU, and interacting with all levels of management across the CCO and within CSBU as a key consulting le der on quality; and performing other responsibilities and duties as assigned.

Edison International and Southern California Edison reserve the right to close or cancel a posting at any time.

If you are interested in this position, please submit your resume in confidence by visiting www.edisonjobs.com.

Edison International is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

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by Robert Lalasz.

Cross-posted from Cool Green Science.

There are 1 billion bacteria in a single gram of soil. (Give or take a few million.)

But how can you get that army—and its insect friends, like the two-inch Jerusalem cricket pictured to the right—to help you grow bigger veggies and prettier flowers?

There’s nobody better to ask than Nature Conservancy soil ecologist Sophie Parker, who recently turned Grist on to the fascinating (and sometimes scary) world of soil organisms. I asked Sophie to give us some tips to make our gardens grow even better—through the power of microbes …

Q. How does this work? Why are microbes so important to good gardens?

A. Bacteria, fungi, and other tiny soil microbes have a variety of ways of making a living, and many of their activities enrich the soil.

First off, they are the Earth’s natural recyclers—decomposing complex substances into smaller compounds that can be used by plants. They do this by producing enzymes—special chemical juices that break things down. Some of these enzymes are like guided missiles with a very specific target. Others are more general and work like a wrecking ball to quickly dismantle large particles. Decomposition in soils is a highly sophisticated, active process, and bacteria and fungi control how it happens.

Another important thing that some bacteria do is pull nitrogen out of the air and convert it into a form that plants can use. This is known as “nitrogen fixation.” Because nitrogen is an essential nutrient that plants need for growth, bacterially driven nitrogen fixation can play an important role in determining how productive soil will be.

Q. So, it’s time to grow vegetables and flowers. What kinds of organisms do we want in our gardens to make sure everything grows huge and beautiful?

A. A garden is an excellent place to see a wide array of organisms at work. Each scoop of earth you turn over with your garden trowel is literally crawling with critters! The majority of these are too small to see without a microscope, but some of the larger soil dwellers are very familiar to gardeners. Earthworms, mites, springtails, and spiders are all important members of the soil food web. They aerate the soil, decompose dead material, and serve as natural biocontrol. Seeing these creatures in your yard is a sign of a healthy ecosystem and good quality soil, which is the foundation of a productive garden.

Q. And which soil critters don’t we want?

A. Well, gardeners wage all kinds of battles with pests large and small. It stands to reason that the juicy, plump, and luscious fruits and veggies that grow in backyard gardens are attractive not only to people, but to a variety of other animals as well.

One soil dweller that gardeners often complain about in my community is actually not a microorganism: it’s the pocket gopher. I’ve seen a single gopher send calm, gentle gardeners into fits of rodenticidal rage. But beyond gophers, many of the flying and crawling insects that eat our growing plants spend one or more of their life stages (egg, larvae, pupa, or adult) in the soil. Cutworms are a good example of this: these are the caterpillars of moths that hide in the soil by day and chew through the stems of plants at night. However, trying to attack soil-dwelling organisms to control the pests in your garden is much like searching for a very tiny needle in a huge haystack.

Q. We’re organic gardeners, it goes without saying. So what can we do organically to promote lots of good ones and make the bad ones go away?

A. There are many steps a gardener can take to promote a healthy garden without using toxic pesticides. Local botanical gardens and arboretums can typically provide a wealth of information on this topic, but the first step is to start viewing your garden holistically, as the fully functioning, biodiverse ecosystem that it is. All organisms are on the hunt for food and space, and you can use this knowledge to your advantage to control pests and weeds:

By varying up the foods and flowers you grow, you reduce the chance that your entire garden will fall victim to being eaten, as many pest organisms are specialist herbivores.

If an insect is eating your plants, try to figure out what species of insect it is and what might eat it or dissuade it. Some of the best controllers of insects are other insects (i.e. think of how effective ladybugs are at controlling aphids), so using a broad-spectrum, chemically-based insecticide can actually make pest problems worse. Mechanical removal of some species is effective; just pick them off plants (or, if possible, get some chickens to do it
for you). Removing small infestations before they become big problems is an effective tactic.

Altering the soil surface by adding mulch (to prevent weed growth) or egg shells (to deter slugs) can really influence which species enter your garden in the first place. Some natural pest control tactics can also be a lot of fun. Invite some friends over one evening to bait slug traps (pour a little beer into shallow containers at ground level), and your vegetable garden could become an impromptu Biergarten.

Q. I’m in. What about fertilizer—does that help or hurt the beneficial microorganisms?

A. Synthetic chemical fertilizers can promote some microorganisms while inhibiting others, but the specifics of this relationship will vary from garden to garden, depending on a variety of factors such as the starting condition of the soil. The composition of the soil microbial community will change if fertilizers are applied; some bacteria will benefit and multiply, and others will lose out. This can cause a cascade through the soil food chain, favoring certain amoeba that eat the newly-favored bacteria, the soil mites that eat the
amoebae, and the larger insects that eat the mites. Right now, researchers are actively studying these complex soil food webs to understand how the addition of nutrients to soils influences the soil community.

Another thing about synthetic chemical fertilizers: They can require a good deal of fossil fuel to produce. Gardeners interested in minimizing their carbon footprint should begin a compost pile and harness the power of bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms to decompose their way towards independence from store-bought fertilizers. Composting not only transforms kitchen scraps and yard waste into valuable plant food, it also diverts waste from landfills. And the rich, earthy smell of a healthy compost pile is its own reward.

Q. Mmmmm … good. So what are some of the coolest of these soil critters in gardens? Can we see them?

A. One of my personal backyard favorites is the Jerusalem cricket (Stenopelmatus sp.), which is also known as the potato bug or niña de la tierra (child of the earth). These insects are up to two inches long,
tan-colored, bulbous-headed, cricket look-alikes with a striped brown abdomen. (See photo above.) They feed primarily on decomposing material in the soil, but when they come to the surface their odd appearance can startle the uninitiated. Jerusalem crickets often venture out at night,
where they become a favorite food of Pallid Bats (Antrozous pallidus).

The more time you spend outside in your garden, the more chances you will have to see the amazing diversity of soil-dwelling creatures it contains. Happy gardening!

Related Links:

California schemin’: How a fake organic fertilizer bamboozled farmers and watchdogs alike

Big Ag doesn’t want you to care about pesticides

Produce industry wants Americans to eat their pesticide-laden veggies

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by Joseph Romm.

One thing we know for certain—more domestic drilling starting now will have exactly the same impact on prices that the increased domestic drilling in the last two years had. Zilch.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration has been making that precise point for years now.

Even the media has started to report on this:  “Today, CNN Money tackles the bottom line: What would more domestic oil production do to the price of gas? In short, close to nothing.”

“This drill drill drill thing is tired,” said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service, which calculates gas prices for the motorist organization AAA. “It’s a simplistic way of looking for a solution that doesn’t exist.”

President Obama is more than aware of this—he himself noted, “Last year, America’s oil production reached its highest level since 2003.” And somehow oil prices soared. Yet in his Saturday radio address, he cynically called for more domestic drilling, including in Alaska, which is ill-prepared for a major spill:

Yes, while allowing that “there are no quick fixes to the problem,” the president actually said more domestic oil production was among the “few steps we should take that make good sense.” Sad.

You’d think that an entire address dedicated to drilling, including drilling in the Gulf, might mention the BP oil disaster, at least in passing. You’d be wrong:

I believe that we should expand oil production in America—even as we increase safety and environmental standards.

To do this, I am directing the Department of Interior to conduct annual lease sales in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve, while respecting sensitive areas, and to speed up the evaluation of oil and gas resources in the mid and south Atlantic. We plan to lease new areas in the Gulf of Mexico as well, and work to create new incentives for industry to develop their unused leases both on and offshore.

We’re also taking steps to give companies time to meet higher safety standards when it comes to exploration and drilling. That’s why my administration is extending drilling leases in areas of the Gulf that were impacted by the temporary moratorium, as well as certain areas off the coast of Alaska. And to streamline that permitting process, I am establishing a new team to coordinate work on Alaska drilling permits.

Of course, this is not so much a new policy as a reversion to Obama’s pre-BP-disaster policy (or is that “Obama’s pre-BP disastrous policy”). But post-spill, one has to wonder about the need for streamlined permitting in Alaska, which would suffer mightily from any spill with far fewer resources available for cleanup.

For the record, caving on drilling was probably inevitable sooner or later given gasoline prices at this level and peak oil (and the Dems’ general semi-competence at coherent messaging). But it is absurd to explicitly link the drilling to the possibility of lowering prices—as that validates “Drill, Baby, Drill.” He truly is Barack “No Narrative” Obama.

Even worse, Obama is not merely adopting the GOP rhetoric—but getting nothing whatsoever in return for it. Obama says we should “eliminate the taxpayer subsidies we give to oil and gas companies.” Well, if you are planning to cave on drilling, how about at least getting the subsidy elimination as part of the deal?

The address offers three explicit “solutions”—having the attorney general look into market manipulation, more drilling, and cutting subsidies. They solve nothing and don’t include any of the key medium-term solutions, including tougher fuel economy standards and the switch to renewable energy. Obama does mention those at the end:

The American people shouldn’t be subsidizing oil companies at a time when they’re making near-record profits. As a nation, we should be investing in the clean, renewable sources of energy that are the ultimate solution to high-gas prices. That’s why we’re investing in clean energy technology, helping businesses that manufacture solar panels and wind turbines, and making sure that our cars and trucks can go further on a tank of gas—a step that could save families as much as $3,000 at the pump.

These are investments worth making—investments that will save us money, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and protect the health and safety of our planet. That’s an energy policy for the future, and it’s what I’ll be fighting for in the weeks and months to come.

Notice he doesn’t say we should take the money from the oil companies subsidies and use it to invest in clean energy—because senate Democrats have already decided the messaging is cleaner if all that money goes to deficit reduction rather than clean energy. Whom the messaging gods would destroy, they first make mad.

Will Obama actually fight to stop the deep cuts in clean energy that the Republicans will insist on to raise the debt ceiling? We’ll see. Maybe the deal Obama should have offered is more drilling in return for not cutting clean energy. But that would require a strategy and a narrative.

Finally, “protect the health and safety of our planet” is the wrong message, even (optimistically) assuming that Obama is making some glancing reference to the environmental-problem-that-must-not-be-named.

Protecting the planet isn’t what most people care about. Protecting the health and safety of our children—now that’s something everyone can get behind. Of course, it’s not clear how you can protect the health and safety of our kids or our planet by drilling for more oil.

Bad messaging. Cynical policy. Tastes filling. Less great. Take your pick.

Related Links:

Critical List: Scientists’ report pushes emissions policy, Greenlanders warm to climate change

Salazar blasts Gulf disaster company Transocean for touting “best year in safety”

Did we learn anything from the BP oil spill?

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